It’s been quite a spectacle over the years to watch Vice President Gore transform from moderate Democrat in Congress and during the Clinton years, to fire-breathing populist in the 2000 presidential campaign, to paranoid partisan in the post-9/11 era. The former vice president spoke yesterday before 3,000 people in Washington, D.C., at an event sponsored by the fringe group Moveon.org and the American Constitution Society. Mr. Gore said that those in the Bush administration “have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, Big-Brother–style government, toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book, ‘1984,’ than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America.”

Strong stuff. And since Mr. Gore was speaking primarily of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA Patriot) Act of 2001, he is putting himself to the left of the 98 senators and 357 members of the House of Representatives who passed the antiterrorism law. In itself, that is no indictment. In times of war the majority of Americans and their representatives might allow the pendulum that swings between freedom and security to swing in the direction of intrusive government. Vigilance is necessary to maintain liberty. But Mr. Gore seems to be taking the position that the pendulum need not swing at all.

Mr. Gore went so far in his speech as to chide the Bush administration for the “implicit assumption” that Americans must give up some freedom in order to be safe from terrorism. Not only is his new position untenable and rejected by the vast majority of Congress, it is not even the position of the American Civil Liberties Union. As recounted in Steven Brill’s book, “After,” the ACLU decided after September 11, 2001, to scrap its long-standing opposition to metal detectors at airports. The organization had objected since 1973 on the grounds that the metal detectors violated the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches. But, in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Center, the objection was deemed indefensible.

Mr. Gore and the ACLU are in agreement, however, in their approach to the Patriot Act. Particularly, the ACLU has concerned itself with Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which deals with collecting evidence in terrorism investigations. The ACLU, on its Web site, states that the FBI can order any person or entity to turn over “any tangible thing” without showing probable cause and practically without any oversight. If one reads the law, though, this turns out to be a gross distortion. The FBI is required to submit all applications under Section 215 to a judge for approval. The judge can deny and modify the FBI’s requests for information. Furthermore, the act provides that on a semiannual basis the attorney general of America shall “fully inform the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate concerning all requests for the production of tangible things.”

“In my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Gore said in his speech. It’s quite the evolution from 1996,when Mr. Gore raised not a peep in objection to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which — spurred by the Oklahoma City bombing, the act of a domestic terrorist — reduced the oversight of federal courts in death penalty cases and increased the government’s power to monitor foreign terrorist groups and their supporters within our borders. It’s a tragic journey Mr. Gore has made. Mainstream Democrats will have their work cut out for them in their efforts to isolate themselves from the damage he is doing to their credibility.